To fill a Medical questionnaire one needs courage. Wait, not courage, you need intelligence, Super human that is, and a lot of patience. Atleast the questionnaire that I got to fill for my Annual checkup.
Name: Are you sure you need my name again? Because I just filled it 10 times on the registration form and printed my name under 15 signatures on privacy notices.
After the name, the form goes on with trivial information like DOB, Today’s date (I will gift you a calendar so you can see today’s date for yourself everyday), place of birth and Reason for visit (Duh!), all of this that was already mentioned in the previous registration/insurance forms.
Family History: Has any blood relative had the following: (Circle if yes)
Mental Illness, Cancer, Diabetes, Stroke, High Cholesterol – Nope none of these even remotely match the word “yes” or even abbreviate to “yes”, So I am not circling them.
Social History: And under this comes the occupation. Are you trying to insult me? You want me to say that of all the great things on earth like Mountaineering, Rafting, Photography, Scientists, I am a mere Software Engineer as Occupation when it comes to my Social History? I understand you are enjoying the peak of your career as a doctor but is this your way of asking your patients to fill their profession and calling it a Social History, to have a sarcastic chuckle? Why wasn’t this called Employment history?
Then comes a blunt question: Are you (circle): Single Married Divorced Widowed.
I am not Circle, I am not square, I am an irregular shaped humanoid. Now what do you want me to do with the other 4 words?
Do you smoke? Yes No. I answered No but it went on to ask How much? and I am left to wonder how to answer How much I don’t smoke!
Exercise Program: Walking around the apartment to get to important places like Bathroom, Fridge, Couch. And as a software engineer I haven’t written any “Program” for Exercise.
List all Medication allergies: I don’t like medicines. They leave a bitter taste in my tongue, unless it tastes good like Benadryl. So you can take it that I am allergic to all medicines.
Surgical History: Nope, I haven’t conducted or performed any surgery on anyone, not even as a 17 year old trying to enter Guinness record, and not even insects or frogs, I was a Computer science major.
Non Surgical History: List all hospitalization without Surgery – Let me check the yellow book and see if there are any hospitals without Surgery department and then get back to you on it.
Sometimes a seemingly trivial but a necessary questionnaire can leave you wondering “WTF”, not just a medical form but it can apply elsewhere too. At somepoint we must all have been Vogons, why on earth otherwise we have to fill form after forms for every single thing that needs to be done.
Like Munnabhai said, “Aadmi martha hai, thab form bharna jaroori hai kya?” (When a man is dying, is it necessary for him to fill the form?).
